WASHINGTON — Justice Department prosecutors in the Biden administration discussed their desire to target Catholic nuns, text messages shared with The Daily Wire show.
Communications obtained by Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) show Joseph Cooney and Molly Gaston texting one another in February 2021 as they scoured media coverage of January 6. The texts specifically reference a New York Times photo of religious sisters who attended the “Stop the Steal” rally, wearing traditional habits and veils, as well as big Trump scarves around their necks.
“I would like to take a special assignment of finding and prosecuting them,” Gaston wrote to Cooney.
“I’m with you,” responded Cooney.
“Hahaha,” his fellow DOJ prosecutor responded.
The Justice Department provided the communications to Grassley as part of his investigation into Arctic Frost, an FBI investigation into Republicans and conservatives. Both Cooney and Gaston went on to serve as top deputies to Special Counsel Jack Smith throughout his Arctic Frost investigation. They now head “Gaston & Cooney PLLC,” and Cooney is running for Congress in Virginia.
Grassley, who previously released messages showing that Cooney and other DOJ prosecutors sought to find ways to target Trump with criminal charges over January 6, told The Daily Wire that he found the messages appalling.
“Freedom of religion is a cherished First Amendment right enshrined in our Constitution by the Founding Fathers,” the senator said. “I was appalled, but sadly not surprised, to discover evidence of Biden DOJ prosecutors threatening to use the power of the federal justice system to target people of faith.”
“Time and again, my oversight has shown the Biden Justice Department, including these prosecutors who went on to advance Jack Smith’s Arctic Frost investigation, showed total disdain for equal justice,” he added.
Cooney, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment, is now running as a Democrat for a congressional seat in Virginia — specifically Virginia’s 7th congressional district, which is part of the Diocese of Arlington, one of the most traditional Catholic dioceses in the United States serving over 430,000 Catholics in the Northern Virginia area.
He’s running on an overtly anti-Trump platform, telling CNN last week: “Donald Trump needs to be impeached. I’m running for Congress to do it.”
Donald Trump needs to be impeached.
I’m running for Congress to do it. pic.twitter.com/aYTwrNwKm8
— J.P. Cooney (@cooneycongress) April 25, 2026
Cooney also disparaged the report the DOJ put out this month on the weaponization of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, defending the Justice Department’s actions after it was exposed that the Biden DOJ used FACE to prosecute and imprison pro-life protesters while providing “extensive support to abortion clinics” and ignoring and downplaying “vandalism and attacks against pregnancy resource centers or houses of worship.”
The report also found that the Biden DOJ was in constant contact with pro-abortion groups to track the travel plans of Christian pro-life activists who had not been charged with any crimes.
Cooney, however, said he is proud of his team’s work on these cases.
“The Trump DOJ’s report on the FACE Act is false,” Cooney said in a post on social media. “I am proud of my team’s work prosecuting people who conspired to barricade a reproductive health clinic, shoved staff, and forced a woman seeking treatment to climb through a reception window. That’s not First Amendment activity — that’s a crime.”
The Trump DOJ’s report on the FACE Act is false. I am proud of my team’s work prosecuting people who conspired to barricade a reproductive health clinic, shoved staff, and forced a woman seeking treatment to climb through a reception window. That’s not First Amendment…
— J.P. Cooney (@cooneycongress) April 14, 2026
In other messages reviewed by The Daily Wire, Cooney and Gaston discussed COVID-19 restrictions on Catholic masses. Gaston complained that it was “insane” for Catholics to be upset that then-President Joe Biden was receiving Holy Communion at Holy Trinity in Georgetown.
“People are insane,” she told Cooney.
“It’s ridiculous,” he responded, before asking her if she was going to mass in person. When Gaston replied that no, she wasn’t going to mass, and she wasn’t even watching mass via a live stream, Cooney shared that someone he knew (their name was redacted) was going to “daily mass since the summer, thankfully without a problem.”
“They really shouldn’t be doing that,” he added.
“Wow,” responded Gaston. “Good for them, except not.”
The New York Post’s Miranda Devine reported last summer that Cooney and other prosecutors showed “nitpicking malice” that “tainted special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation.”
“Can we do some work to nail down Trump’s role in this,” Cooney wrote to his colleagues at the DOJ in a March 8, 2023, email with the subject line: “J6 Prisoner Choir/DJT.”
Cooney attached an article from Forbes that was headlined “Trump Collaborates On Song With Jan. 6 Defendants,” writing that Trump recorded the January 6 prisoner choir singing the “Pledge of Allegiance” at Mar-a-Lago.
“Proceeds are intended for families of incarcerated J6 defendants — but there is apparently a vetting process that excludes families of defendants who assaulted police officers,” Cooney wrote, according to the New York Post, adding that he would talk to colleagues about “doing some follow up here to nail down Trump’s role.”
